


Close Enough

by zacian (orphan_account)



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Childhood Friends, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Minor Dande | Leon/Kibana | Raihan, One Shot Collection, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23231470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/zacian
Summary: Hop learns as he grows of the complications that come with being in love with his childhood best friend and rival for the title of Champion. As it turns out, it’s not as strange or as difficult as it sounds.A collection of Postwickshipping one shots. Pre-canon, post-canon and everything in between.
Relationships: Hop/Yuuri | Gloria
Comments: 21
Kudos: 74





	1. Play Nice

**Author's Note:**

> ive been in a creative rut lately so i figured this would be a good way to motivate me to write more. im still riding the swsh hype and still love this pairing, so there's a lot more i want to do
> 
> most of these will be on the slightly longer side since im apparently incapable of writing anything under 3k, but i'll probably sprinkle in some shorter pieces too. i have lots of basic ideas for premises but suggestions are welcome! updates will likely be sporadic but i have lots of free time now so. here we go
> 
> enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot in the way of strife when it comes to love, apparently, and Hop can't help but wonder if there's something wrong with keeping the peace.

* * *

Leon is the first to point out to his face the problem Hop hadn’t realized was a problem, but he’s definitely not the first to think it or scrawl it out. Hop has seen the things written about him and Gloria, even if some of those things have made him wish he was illiterate.

“You know,” Leon says over a spoonful of cereal, “I’ve been reading the papers and watching your matches, and it seems like you and Gloria get on really well. Almost a little _too_ well.” He offers a small and preemptively comforting smile like the implication is obvious on the last few words and Hop can only stare blankly.

It is one of those glorious mornings that Hop and Leon have time to spend together, and spend time together they do. Postwick finally feels more like it used to with two thirds of its foundation here, but it still isn’t quite home. Not without its prodigal daughter.

“Is that a bad thing?” Hop asks, tipping the bowl in his hands to his lips to noisily drink the milk from it.

Leon is older and wiser and knows many things. He has experience with love, if his many years spent hopelessly waltzing around his affections for a certain Gym Leader and rival are any indication. They are truly brothers in that respect. Hop trusts that he has some wisdom to impart, and his ears are at the ready when Leon speaks again.

“Not necessarily. It’s just that the honeymoon phase isn’t meant to last for more than the first few months. After that, things can get...tense.”

Hop’s brows crease as he sets the bowl down. “Are you speaking from experience, Lee?”

Leon laughs, a hearty and robust noise for a hearty and robust Trainer. “Well, sure! Most everybody I know has gone through a rough patch at one point, at _least_. I’m no different. It’s normal to have relationship troubles from time to time.” He leans towards Hop, voice wisping into a tone that is conspiratorial in the most concerned and fraternal way. “Have you two been having any difficulties lately? Any arguments?”

Hop’s brain rattles off a few recent memories: the time Gloria had made a fuss over him coming to see her when he was ill and by all means should have stayed in bed, but he’d promised, and their disagreements over which Meowth form is superior. (Gloria, ever patriotic, being firmly in the camp of Galarian Meowth and her beloved Perrserker, while Hop argued for the appreciation of the native Kantonian specimen).

“None that I can think of! Nothing major, that is. Is that normal, too?”

Leon looks a bit flummoxed, although the smile doesn’t spiral from his face, just settles into a thin line. “I’m sure it is. Just let your big brother know if anything comes up, okay? I’ve got plenty of know-how when it comes to these things.”

Hop doesn’t think he’ll need the advice, but he believes without a hint of doubt or self-awareness that Leon is his best bet for it, so he nods and says sure.

Leon says something about Raihan, and Hop fires back with something about Gloria, and they laugh till milk spills from Hop’s nose when they realize they’ve got yet another kind of rivalry brewing between them.

* * *

They’re sickening in their sweetness. So say a number of sources. Hop can’t exactly refute it. The evidence is stacked against him: the times he’s been unable to answer a question properly on account of Gloria peppering kisses all over his face, or the time they’d been blown up on the big screen kiss cam during an intermission, hunkering down behind the stands to touch their foreheads and noses together like they’d never see each other again. Hop still hasn’t lived that one down.

It must indeed be kind of revolting how much they love each other, from an outsider’s perspective. Sonia has a thing or two to say about public displays of affection, but as with most things her enforcement of them is lax. She is anything but punitive, and she looks more like she wants to plan their wedding than scold them when Hop holds his girlfriend’s hand through an interview, gazes at her till he forgets the question that’s been asked.

Small wonder then that the Servine (Gloria’s words, not his) on the media teams are bent on scraping together a scandal at every turn. They don’t have much to work with, so they turn to wondering if the whole thing isn’t a facade, that the Champion or perhaps her boyfriend may be hiding something beneath the saccharine surface. They’re almost adamant enough to make Hop wonder whether they really might be doing it all wrong. Almost.

“Oh, get a load of this, Gloria,” Hop says, laughter turning his words staccato. Gloria leans over his phone to read for herself. “It says here you’re thinking of retiring! And we’re right on the brink of breaking up because you’re _not_ planning on passing your title down to me.”

Last week the nastiest rumor on one of the slimier and more obscure accounts had been that Gloria was seeing someone on the side. _That_ hadn’t sat well with her, and she’d only barely avoided assault charges when one journalist had steered their conversation to the topic. Hop has the duty and the habit of keeping her grounded just as she does for him, and he hadn’t failed her that time.

Gloria crinkles her nose. “I’d sooner _die,_ ” she says, and whether she’s referring to the act of retiring or giving her Championship to someone other than Hop, he isn’t sure, but his laughter intensifies, and it warbles in tune with hers.

He scrolls down a little further, and there’s someone saying it’s odd that the two of them never fight. That makes two people now who’ve said it outright. Below, another someone comments that they’ve got to be hiding something, and whatever it is is destined to make their relationship implode. Strong words. Hop stops laughing and stops scrolling.

Gloria is on her own phone now, and the rhythmic tapping of her thumbs on the screen tells him she’s not on social media but playing some game. She glances up when she notices the lull in Hop’s voice. “I’m not retiring, just so we’re clear,” she says, “and I’m not planning on breaking up with you.”

Hop chokes a little. Her bluntness is as familiar to him as it is startling, the way it comes in a rush at times like this and knocks him over by the feet like riptide. “I know! I’m not worried about any of the things these sorry excuses for news outlets ever say. Just…”

“Just…?”

“Do you think it’s weird? How we never argue?”

The tapping stops, and Gloria looks at him from the glow of her phone. Her mouth isn’t frowning but her eyes are. “What’s this all about?”

“Lee was saying the other day that couples argue sometimes, and he said that it’s normal and fine. He asked if there was anything like that going on between us, and I said no.” Gloria is not as keen on Leon’s words as Hop is, but she admires him, has since she was a small child, and they must hold some weight to her. “I’ve been thinking that maybe it is a little strange how we never. Fight, I mean.”

“Him and Raihan get into another one of their spats?” Gloria doesn’t miss a beat asking, and her bottom lip snakes dangerously into the first inklings of a smile.

“Haha… I don’t know about that. Maybe! They _are_ rivals, after all, and they’ve been competing with each other for a long time.”

Leon’s old throne has not been his anymore for some good time, but his and Raihan’s rivalry goes as strong as their love. Every once in a while it ruptures into a heated and spontaneous match on some trail or at the gates of Hammerlocke, and a few lucky bystanders get to bathe in the fallout.

(Much to Hop’s blabbermouth pride, Leon almost always comes out victorious. They are quite unlike brothers in this regard.) 

“Hop,” says Gloria, in as gentle a pitch as she can manage, “ _we’re_ rivals, too. And I’m not caught up in what anyone thinks of our relationship. I don’t think we’re meant to act this way or that or there’s got to be something amiss. Unless you _want_ for us to argue...?”

Her dark eyes brim with mirth and a weighty challenge, and as much as Hop loves a challenge, he shakes his head no, backs away from this one. There’s no bite to her words, no burn to the way she bats her lashes, but Hop only feels the fire course through him when they battle. This is not a battle.

“...But if you _had_ to give up your title to someone, you’d choose me, right?” he asks.

Gloria sits up, strokes a thumb over his cheekbone where she holds his face in her hand to kiss him. “In a heartbeat.”

* * *

“It’s all about connection!” Leon’s smile is wide as he booms over the TV screen, chest heaving with laughter and pride. “When two people who share a strong bond battle, their hearts are as connected with each other as they are with their own Pokémon!”

It’s sort of a poetic thing to say, Hop thinks, and Raihan seems to think so too, judging by the way his eyes go the slightest bit watery as he watches Leon yammer on to the interviewer. When the woman asks them if it isn’t hard, being rivals in much the same way as they are boyfriends, Raihan takes that as his cue.

“Our relationship isn’t any worse for the occasional argument,” he says, “or for our battles. In fact, I’d say our rivalry only deepens the care and respect we’ve got for each other. We push each other, help each other grow.” 

Hop can see the merit in that.

“Disagreement and conflict aren’t always bad things, either,” Leon chimes in. “Sometimes it really is necessary to let your true feelings go and blow off steam. The important thing is to do it in a healthy way, no matter who it is you’re disagreeing with!”

It is, as always, a sage piece of advice from his brother. Hop nods like Leon’s just passed it down to him face-to-face, like his brother is here with him.

He takes it to heart, because the way Leon and Raihan look at each other, squeeze each other’s hands like they’re the only two people in the world, tells him to.

* * *

Hop’s mind is beginning to itch like it needs a good scratching, but he can’t quite reach in far enough to do it.

That’s where Gloria comes in, as she does.

They’re laying on her bed, sprawled out like languid Liepard, her back twisting in a way that can’t possibly be good for the human spine and makes Hop cringe a little. Her feet hang off the side and her head is on his chest; his arm is starting to go numb but he can’t bring himself to move or say anything because she looks comfortable like that, half-lidded eyes fixed on the ceiling. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Hop says, and Gloria glances to her side to look at him knowing that can mean any number of things, “about what Lee said the other day.”

“Oh, yeah?” She sounds like she’s bracing herself, but she holds fast to him, listening.

“Yeah. And I know you don’t place too much weight on what other people think of our relationship—I don’t either! I know we shouldn’t. But I was thinking, after what Lee said, it can be good to let things out sometimes. You know...lay all our feelings out on the table.”

Catharsis, that’s what he means even if he isn’t sure Gloria knows the word. She certainly is familiar with the feeling, the rising push and the crushing fall of release. It comes to her in every battle; he can see it in the red that colors her face whenever her victory is hanging by a thread and one of her many Pokémon at last delivers the finishing blow.

Maybe this is a kind of battle, too. Maybe it can be, by the grace of her hot blood and stubbornness and his own impulsiveness and the heart on his sleeve.

She turns to him, and there’s as much wickedness in her eyes as there is love. “Okay, then,” she says, “let’s talk it out.” She rises from her place on his chest and sits up straight, motioning for him to do the same, and then she leans down, leaving twin imprints in the mattress with her knees, and presses her hands down on his shoulders to anchor herself. “I’m rather tired of the way you look at me from across the pitch like you’re trying to throw each match with how handsome you are.”

Hop’s heart hammers in dull thumps against its caging. He knows what this is, can’t mistake it for anything else when the words leave her lips and she’s looking at him with a rage of playfulness in all her features.

It’s an amusing reversal, how she is taller than him now, looming slightly, but it only bolsters his courage.

He meets her right on.

“I don’t like the tone of your voice when you call my name all the way from the other side of the crowds. It sounds like a song and it makes my heart race.”

“I’m not fond of how mushy you get with all the pet names you give me. _Sweetheart,_ really? You’re dedicated to turning me into a sap, aren’t you?”

They’re laughing, Hop realizes, and it’s a resonant sound like the clinking of bells. They are well and truly alone, he thinks, a sudden sliver of revelation—not just in this space but in the world. No one else has so intimate an understanding of every nerve and vessel that makes either one of them tick.

She lifts a hand to brush fingers across where his cheek flattens, and he touches at the back of her hand with his own. She is staring now, meeting the lock of his eyes on hers, a confusion of deep brown beckoning for his full attention.

No one else has the words.

“I hate the way you talk yourself down, Hop. It hurts to listen to.”

He breathes in, not a sharp noise but a quiet one, eyes twitching shut for a moment. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

Her fingers slide to the jut of his jaw, and his hand moves with them, feeling the gentle flex of her knuckles. He pleads for her wordlessly not to pull away, and she heeds his call like their minds are linked where their hands meet.

He doesn’t hate the way she corners him like this, only wishes he did. They’ve been through it before, this thing like a ritual or a crude mockery of one, and it strengthens his resolve a bit more each time, but there is still a piece that makes him ache like he’s yearning for something and does not know what.

Their hands stay there, on the side of his face like they’re holding tight against a wound, staunching a critical flow. She lets her head drop to brush her fringe against his and he wraps his free arm over her back and holds her like a lifeline when she pulls away enough to look at him again.

He’s been pushing back the weakness that threatens to breach, and he only realizes too late it’s not the thing he should have been staving off all this time.

In most cases she’d crush the pesky knot, the blight of his many fears, under the heel of her boot, turn it to a fine silt and go on her way with him at her side. Perhaps she is coming to a realization of her own, though, because she decides today is a day to sit with it, let it roll through.

“You make me stronger,” he says. He should shut his eyes, should turn his gaze from hers, but maybe he is too bold for his own good because he goes on looking into the daunting pyre of her stare. “I mean that.”

“I know you do.” He means most things. “And _you_ keep me balanced. I’d be a lost cause if it weren’t for you.”

“Oh, _now_ who’s the one talking themselves down?”

“Let’s call it even, then.” There’s laughter on the tug of her lips but her lungs won’t loose it. She leans into him, or he leans into her, the uncertainty a testament to how in sync they really are. 

Gloria’s hand lifts from the pressure point trembling at the hollow of his cheek, and it is like a stopper being pulled when she moves to thread her fingers through his hair instead. He moves to set his face into the crook of her neck. She smells faintly like something singed or overcooked. She is not a raging wildfire in this semblance of a home she’s built with him but a steady heat over a pit of scrap wood and black coals.

“I love that you stay here with me, even when things get tough,” he says, pulling back again, soft like he’s been meaning to say it but could never figure out how. “I love everything you do for me, Gloria.”

She knows it, and he knows that she knows, but what good would it do to keep it inside? Leon has told him: The more you bottle things up, the more likely they are to burst in the end. He’d been talking about hurt and pain and anger, but Hop sees no reason it shouldn’t apply to this, too.

“I love your smile, Hop. Your _real_ smile.” He gives her one now. “It makes me feel things I’d never thought I could feel.”

“I love the way you give it everything you’ve got each and every time we battle. You never do go easy on me.”

“Never.” She grins, canines flashing in the lowlight. She cuts like obsidian, sharp and precise, and Hop would not have it any other way.

He stills under her touch but his heart is moving restlessly, growing outward. He lets his cheek rest on the roughness of her right palm, and he thinks it strange how natural the contrast feels: the raw, weathered look and feel of her and the delicate timbre of her voice. He’s never heard it anywhere else, not in any interviews and certainly not in the stadium.

“I only want to fight with you when we’re out there,” he says, “on the pitch. That’s the only time we should be at odds.”

She nods, and there’s thoughtful consideration in the movement. “I can get behind that,” she says, “on one condition.”

He tilts his head up, curiously, because she’s leaning back and looking over him once more. “What’s that?”

“You don’t _dare_ hold back, and you keep doing your best to pull my throne out from under me.”

His laugh leaves him just as hers departs too, and he holds her at the waist, moves her close against him. It sounds almost like a quarrel, the way they descend into a fit of love-you-mores, but they’re betrayed by the giggling that bounces and sticks to the walls of Gloria’s flat.


	2. Breaking Bread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gloria has something to ask of Hop, but her words won't quite do.

* * *

“Hop! Am I ever glad to see you!”

Gloria ambushes him when the sun’s on its way down and the cold is setting in, touching the leaves and whistling grass with amber and blue, settling on everything but the fire he’s keeping lit by his feet. Her Thwackey is on her shoulders, and she shrieks in greeting, brandishing her sticks as Gloria waves.

Hop stands, knee bent, ready to call his Pokémon to action from the other side of the campsite though they’ve not eaten yet and the fire is still newborn. “Gloria! It’s good to see you, too!”

She’s not here for a battle, though, judging by the weariness in her own and Thwackey’s eyes, the tufts of unruly fur poking out in clumps from the Pokémon’s hindquarters. Gloria’s knees are dusted with dirt and seem to be shivering the slightest bit in the breeze that comes over her bare legs. 

“We’re both knackered, me and Thwackey,” she says, sitting herself on the stump opposite Hop and putting her palms up to the glow of the pit. “Mind if we join you for dinner?”

She’s never had to ask, will never have to; it’s less of an actual question and more of Gloria being Gloria, trying her hand at a parody of formality with the best friend she’s known all her life. 

Hop smiles wide. “Not at all. I’ll be glad to have the company.” He _has_ been getting a mite lonely. He’d be happy to see anyone come his way, but Gloria’s presence is especially welcome.

“We’ve not eaten all day,” she goes on, scowling as she pulls her coin purse from her bag and rifles through it. It’s empty, judging by the way her frown deepens. “Spent all that remained of my savings on Poké Balls and Potions, and I think I’ve taken every last penny of pocket money from the poor schoolchildren on Route Three. I’ve had no luck finding any ingredients either, blast it all.”

Hop moves to the pot that’s only just beginning to simmer, picking up his bag and setting it on his knee. “We can’t have that. You’ve got to keep your strength up if you’re to continue on to the next Gym with me!” He goes through the contents, and he’s got a little bit of everything. “What sounds good? Fried-food, sausage, apple?”

“Ooh, fried-food would be _lovely._ ”

Hop snaps his fingers. “You’ve got it, mate.”

The fire crackles and the pot bubbles as Hop drops the ingredients in. He stirs in a bit of seasoning, begins chopping up some berries. They’re ripe and fragrant and he thinks they’ll go well with what he’s imagining as he stirs the mix a bit faster than he probably should.

Thwackey coos and claws impatiently at her Trainer’s sleeve. “I know, I know,” Gloria soothes, reaching down to scratch at the top of her head. “I’m sorry, girl. Hop here will fix us up in no time.”

Hop lifts the ladle in his hand. “Don’t worry, you two! I’ve got culinary skills to rival the great Siebold’s, you’ll see!”

Gloria laughs. He doesn’t need to tell her twice. Thwackey skitters to the base of the fire, fanning the flames with a leaf, evidently as ready to eat as her Trainer is. She jumps back when an ember almost licks at her nose, and Hop has to hold back his laughter.

“Whoa, whoa, easy with the Tamato Berry there!” Gloria says, giving Hop pause. “I mean, I can take the heat, but Thwackey over here isn’t so tough.”

Thwackey bangs on the pot with a stick, screeching her dissent. 

“Sure, Gloria.” Hop laughs, finally, dropping one half of the berry in his hand into the curry and slipping the other half to Thwackey. She breaks the fruit apart with grubby hands and stuffs the pieces into her mouth bit by bit, looking pleased.

Through the gray smoke that’s rising, painting hurried and fleeting lines over the darkening clearing, Hop can make out the set of Gloria’s jaw, the loose cling of her parka to her arms and her midsection. She looks more fatigued than he’s seen her in ages, staring through the fire with a blankness to the subdued flicker of her eyes. There are bags under them, and her skin is sallow where the creases form and the red rings her waterline.

She won’t ask for anything, won’t want for anything. He knows it. He knows her too well.

“Smells good,” she says, offering him a smile though her teeth don’t show. “Like your mum’s cooking.”

“She’s taught me well,” Hop says, giving the curry a good stir and letting the scent waft up along with the soot. It’s sweet and spicy and smoky all at once. “Her cooking is the best.”

“Is it ever. What I wouldn’t give to have some of it right now…” She sits forward with her elbows on her thighs, setting her face in her palms and looking into the boil of the pot, and he knows she must be thinking of it too.

It wasn’t long ago that they’d had their last barbecue, one evening in the late spring before Hop had sprinted them into their Gym Challenge. His family had the honors of hosting most of them for as long as Hop can remember, and for just as long he’d watched Gloria’s appetite grow. She’d look with awe at the spread of it, skewers of red onion and marinated seitan, bowls of rice, a half dozen types of dal, sheets of roti to scoop up each one and she’d take a bit of everything each time and come back for seconds.

“Well, this should be the next best thing!” Hop says, rising to his feet to hand her a plate. Gloria passes it off to Thwackey and takes the next one for herself.

“Thanks, Hop.” There’s more gratitude in her eyes than in her words.

“As they say in Kalos, _bon appetit_.”

The flavors to this dish are mild, more so than Hop usually likes, but they make for an easy meal for Gloria. She retreats into silence as she eats, tucking into the pieces of fried food and berries and sopping the remainder up with a piece of bread and licking her fingers clean. Thwackey eats just as voraciously, with her hands, shoveling the food into her gob as Hop watches in slight amusement while digging into his own portion. 

Gloria looks a little stunned, a little bewildered when she’s finished far too soon, like she’s not sure where it’s all gone, looking at the plate that’s been wiped completely free of any residue. She doesn’t place it on the table, just holds it still in her lap, and Thwackey mirrors her.

She is not too proud to beg, in her own roundabout way, but she’d gut him for any visible hint of pity and he knows it.

He stands again to pull the ladle up over the rim. “I’ll probably need yours and your Pokémon’s help to finish this,” he says. “I think I’ve made far too much, and I don’t want it to go to waste.”

Gloria helps herself. They sit and eat till the fire has died and the pot is empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of a shorter one this time. i think im getting used to writing these smaller one shots and also at writing slight angst. hope everyone is doing well!


	3. Ready Set

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hop has never been one for waiting, but he can make an exception for the neighbor girl.

* * *

Gloria’s mother warns them ceaselessly about the dangers of wandering past the boundaries drawn on every side of town. There are beastly Pokémon there, she says, ones that snatch up disobedient children and take them away to their dens, never to be seen again.

They are not to go into the brush past the mouth of Postwick nor into the Slumbering Weald. That is the rule set by the village as a whole, and though it all sounds a bit fun, a bit like an adventure, Hop is good and complies. Gloria, too, though she gets a faraway glaze to her eyes when she sees the commotion off the beaten trail to Wedgehurst. Hop reassures her, saying that when they’re just a little bit older, they’ll receive Pokémon of their own and set out on their journeys. Together, he promises, ‘cause they’ve always been.

It brightens her a bit, and she smiles like she’s taking him up on something. They shake hands, and then bump fists, and then do a series of other motions known only to them that Hop won’t remember when he’s grown.

* * *

They don’t plan but they dream, on the same wavelength like they can see into each other’s futures. Gloria fashions herself a sword out of plywood and string, ignoring the splinters that prick red on her palms and the pads of her fingers, and Hop parries her attacks with sheet metal. She knocks the piece from his hand and it goes clattering to the ground, but just as soon as she’s standing triumphant over him she’s reaching down to lift him by the wrist. He says he’ll get her next time and he does, but he breaks her handiwork in the process and they’re forced to find other things to play with.

They run in circles around each other, dancing like Volbeat and Illumise aglow in the night (Gloria’s mother makes that exact comparison and Hop blushes and stutters). He sees her by his side always, alternating between stumbling behind and darting far, far ahead, so far and so fast that she trips and falls and cuts herself on rock and root. She never cries when it happens, just picks herself up, brushes herself off and goes steady on ahead. Hop learns from example, but he can’t quash the strange flutter in his gut as easily as he plucks the burs from his shirt.

Hop says that when he’s older, he’ll have strong Pokémon, the strongest Galar has ever seen. She is a farmhand as much as he, but he seems to have a wider breadth of knowledge when it comes to caretaking. Maybe it’s not knowledge so much as intuition, a simple knack. The Pokémon in the fields and hills don’t seem to jitter as nervously around him as around her, even when their voices match in volume.

Gloria says that when she’s older, she’ll have strong Pokémon too, powerful and beautiful ones. She’ll go where he goes and they’ll climb to the top. Together, she says, and Hop agrees though he knows there’s only so much room.

* * *

Hop is not the same age Leon had been when he got his first partner Pokémon; he’s a year younger, nine and buzzing with moxie. It’s a present from Leon, one of many, and comes fastened with ribbon just like all the rest. The twine is blue and purple around his leg, and Hop brushes his thumb over it with a grin and tears at the corners of his eyes.

His brother smiles and says, “So you can be a Trainer, too, a proper one! I hope to see you do your best, and maybe one day I’ll even see you in Wyndon Stadium!”

He takes his leave with his cape dragging behind him before he finds the sense to pull it up, and he strikes a pose and ducks under the doorframe and runs. Hop wants to chase after him, challenge him to a battle right then and there with his new friend, but Leon is older and has things to do that are an unfathomable distance from Hop.

His Wooloo is small. He knows when he sees him because he’s seen the other Wooloo, so many of them, and this one is puny. He can’t help but wonder if Leon had known, but it’s not important. This Wooloo is his and he will be the strongest of them all if Hop has anything to do with it.

(He finds out later that the Wooloo had been his family’s own; Leon had scooped the unwanted bundle up from the barn where his much bigger siblings sat rustling the hay and brought him to Hop because he’d surely be abandoned by the Dubwool otherwise. Their parents did not want to deal with the repercussions of it.)

Wooloo bleats and nudges his head against Hop’s open palm, and Hop holds him tight and cards fingers through his thick wool.

“We’ll do this together,” he says. “You and me, we’ll take on the League for sure, and we’ll beat my brother!” He brings a fist up and Wooloo headbutts it as if in solid agreement.

* * *

“It’s too bad the girl next door hasn’t got a Pokémon,” Hop’s father says. “I’m sure she’d do nicely with a Rookidee or maybe a Wooloo like yours.”

Gloria is a sturdy girl built from mortar and pasture, and Hop thinks she’d do better with a Pokémon like Mudbray or Budew. He can agree, though, that it is a shame she hasn’t got one of her own, especially since she loves them all so much. She watches with barely hidden intentions from behind the fences she and Hop hang off of, staring into the green maw that the wild things jostle like she’s ready to spring through the cracks and wrangle one with her bare hands. He wouldn’t put it past her to try. 

Hop can go past the long forbidden borders now, so he goes with his Wooloo trailing him, Poké Ball in hand, but Wooloo rears in fright when he sees the flash of feathers and is too panicked to dodge the talons and wings of the Hoothoot that assails them. He’s missing clumps of wool when Hop manages to retreat with him hanging limply from his arms. They don’t try again.

* * *

Patience is a virtue, and it is not one that Hop keeps close to his heart. 

Within two weeks Wooloo has learned how to tuck his little hooves under his belly, roll headfirst onto his back so he can spring deftly by his wool into a masterful Tackle. Hop gestures and shouts commands and imagines that he is in the stadium with the air cool and harsh in his hair, with Wooloo having evolved and grown great horns, bulldozing every obstacle in his way.

He turns and grins at Gloria. She’s been watching with blooming interest though it flits longingly every once in a while down the nearby route and into the grass. Now her gaze is on his Wooloo, and when she sees that Hop has stopped moving it goes to him.

She smiles in turn and Hop feels like his footing has slipped from under him for the briefest moment before he gets a grip once more.

She’s been his only audience, and she seems to be the only person he can get to watch him for long enough to impress. He tries and tries and never fails to bring the cheers out from her, but if he knows Gloria he knows she will not stay on the sidelines for long.

When he turns again to shout for his Wooloo to charge, her mirage is on the other side, grown up and standing like a brick wall with her Pokémon. The hefty Mudsdale makes the earth shake and split beneath its hooves the way Gloria does with the stomp of her boots, and Hop has never been more fervent when he brings forth his next attack.

* * *

His dreams are of her almost as much as they are of himself and Leon and the magnificent stadium. The flutter is a maelstrom now and it pinches like needles and makes him feel queasy. He can flee from it all he likes but he’s more inclined to chase after it the way she races after him and fills his shoe prints with her much bigger, clunkier own.

He cannot go where she will not follow. That much is clearer to him than ever before the instant she laughs as she watches his Wooloo flop into a tangle of bushes and it sounds a lot like a challenge.

* * *

Gloria looks almost glum, almost anxious when they meet at her request at the cove of misshapen rocks by the ravine outside of the Slumbering Weald, the one they’ve agreed is their hideout like the ones kids have in Hoenn. It’s the one where Hop thinks about hiding away with her for however long they can before his parents might come looking for him. He thinks it would be a while, and thinks he’d be okay with that if she would too.

She kneels to pet Wooloo, rubbing his ears till his eyes close in bliss. When she stands back up her own eyes are wet though she’s smiling and goes to hold Hop by the shoulders.

“I guess this is goodbye, then,” she says. “Or it will be, soon enough.”

Hop isn’t quite sure what she’s talking about, but he has a hunch and his stomach knots almost painfully. “Gloria?”

“I’m happy for you, Hop. You’re gonna do great things, I know it.” She pats him firmly with both hands, grinning with her brows knit. She looks so much like she belongs to Postwick, is tethered here, oversized jumper on her hyperkinetic frame, the gingham dress with mud-stained frills rustling loosely over her bruised and freshly bandaged shins.

But she is destined for bigger and better things. He’s sure of it.

“Gloria, I’m not going anywhere without you.” Surely she must remember. She is as old as him—older by a few months, even—and he remembers. “We’re in this together, right? That was the promise I made to you. I’m not leaving until you’re ready to come with me!”

He doesn’t know how long it’ll take, but he’s certain he can put a word in with Leon and he’ll take care of it whenever he finds the time.

Gloria is not wise beyond her years or gracious and her doe eyes are heavy with relief and joy when his words leave him and his conviction is clear in them. Whether it’s selfish of her to grip his arms tighter with her shaking hands, Hop doesn’t know and doesn’t care. She hugs him and laughs harshly in his ear and nothing matters but the way he thinks he can feel her heart racing almost as fast as his.

If he’d once thought she would follow wherever he goes, it is becoming clear to him now that the opposite is just as true. It’s a truce as sacred as it is practical: they’re joined at the hip and cannot be kept apart.

He takes her hand, and they shelter in the cove till the sun sets wavering and her mother’s voice carries from across the stage of shadows it casts.


End file.
